e discharge of
the stern and urgent responsibilities which the plight of his nation
demanded, sounded the death knell of a dynasty which, it was generally
felt, had forfeited the crown. Whilst abroad, on one of his periodic
visits, Parliament deposed him, and proclaimed the extinction of his
dynasty, which had occupied the throne of Persia for a hundred and thirty
years, whose rulers proudly claimed no less a descent than from Japhet,
son of Noah, and whose successive monarchs, with only one exception, were
either assassinated, deposed, or struck down by mortal disease.

Their myriad progeny, a veritable "beehive of princelings," a "race of
royal drones," were both a disgrace and a menace to their countrymen. Now,
however, these luckless descendants of a fallen house, shorn of all power,
and some of them reduced even to beggary, proclaim, in their distress, the
consequences of the abominations which their progenitors have perpetrated.
Swelling the ranks of the ill-fated scions of the House of U_th_man, and
of the rulers of the Romanov, the Hohenzollern, the Hapsburg, and the
Napoleonic dynasties, they roam the face of the earth, scarcely aware of
the character of those forces which have operated such tragic revolutions
in their lives, and so powerfully contributed to their present plight.

Already grandsons of both Nasiri'd-Din _Sh_ah and of Sultan 'Abdu'l-'Aziz
have, in their powerlessness and destitution, turned to the World Center
of the Faith of Baha'u'llah, and sought respectively political aid and
pecuniary assistance. In the case of the former, the request was promptly
and firmly refused, whilst in the case of the latter it was unhesitatingly
offered.

THE DECLINE IN THE FORTUNES OF ROYALTY

And as we survey in other fields the decline in the fortunes of royalty,
whether in the years immediately preceding the Great War or after, and
contemplate the fate that has overtaken the Chinese Empire, the Portuguese
and Spanish Monarchies, and more recently the vicissitudes that have
afflicted, and are still afflicting, the sovereigns of Norway, of Denmark
and of Holland, and observe the impotence of their fellow-sovereigns, and
note the fear and trembling that has seized their thrones, may we not
associate their plight with the opening passages of the Suriy-i-Muluk,
which, in view of their momentous significance, I feel impelled to quote a
second time: "Fear God, O concourse of kings, and suffer not yourselves